Senate bill adds 66 million immigrants

About the Author

Most discussion of the proposed
Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (generally referred to as the
Hagel-Martinez bill), centers on the fact that it would grant
amnesty to 10 million illegal immigrants. But this is a mere drop
in the bucket.

If enacted, Hagel-Martinez would represent the most dramatic change
in immigration law in 80 years. If enacted in its original form, S.
2611 would have resulted in an estimated 103 million immigrants
entering the U.S. or achieving legal status over the next 20 years.
All of these would have had the right to become citizens. Early
last week, Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D.-N.M.) forced through an amendment
to the bill (opposed by the bill's authors) to reduce one of the
major categories of proposed immigrant inflow.

Transforming America

Even with the Bingaman amendment, the bill would allow an estimated
66 million people to immigrate legally to the United States in the
next 20 years. Annual legal immigration to the U.S. would more than
double if Hagel-Martinez becomes law, from one million per year to
2.5 million. Under current law, 19 million immigrants would enter
the United States legally in the next 20 years; Hagel-Martinez
would add 47 million to this total.

Today, legal immigrants are here on 1) temporary status, in which
they can stay only for a designated period of time, 2)
near-permanent convertible status, in which they are given the
right to "adjust" or convert to legal permanent residence after a
few years, or 3) legal permanent residence (LPR) status, in which
they can remain in the United States for the rest of their lives
and seek full citizenship after five years.

The bill proposed by Senators Chuck Hagel (R.-Neb.) and Mel
Martinez (R.-Fla.) would give most immigrants now identified as
"temporary" a "convertible" status with virtually unrestricted
opportunity to become legal permanent residents and then
citizens.

Moreover, under Hagel-Martinez and current immigration law,
immigrants in convertible or LPR status have the right to bring
spouses and minor children into the country. Spouses and dependent
children will be granted permanent residence along with the primary
immigrant and also may become citizens. In addition, after
naturalizing, an immigrant can bring his parents into the United
States as permanent residents with the opportunity for
citizenship.

No Limits

There are no limits on the number of spouses, dependent children
and parents of naturalized citizens who can be brought into country
under Hagel-Martinez. Siblings and adult children (along with their
families) of naturalized citizens and the adult children (and their
families) of legal permanent residents get preference in future
admission but are subject to numeric caps.

Four key provisions of Hagel-Martinez would result in an explosive
increase in legal immigration: First, illegal immigrants who have
been in the United States for five years or more-60 % of all
illegals-would be granted immediate amnesty. Illegals here two to
five years (another 25%) would travel to one of 16 "ports of
entry," where they would receive amnesty and work permits. After
receiving amnesty, illegal immigrants would spend six years in a
provisional status, then become legal permanent residents. Five
years later, they could become U.S. citizens. Moreover, all who
receive amnesty could bring their spouses and dependent children
into the country, and none of these individuals would count against
any cap or limit in immigration law.

Hagel-Martinez also creates a new "temporary guest-worker" program,
but there is nothing temporary about it. Nearly all "guest workers"
would have the option to become permanent residents and then
citizens. Foreign workers would have to have a job offer from a
U.S. employer to enter the country. But intermediate employment
firms that specialize in recruiting foreign labor for U.S.
employers likely would emerge to handle this for nearly everyone
who wanted in.

Guest workers could remain in the United States for six years, and
in the fourth of those six years, request and receive LPR status if
they have learned English or enrolled in an English class. And
again, there are no limits on the number of guest workers who could
move to LPR status, stay in the country permanently and become U.S.
citizens. And, again, their spouses and minor children also would
be permitted to immigrate to the United States with them and gain
LPR status with them. And again, those who become citizens then
could bring in their parents as legal permanent residents.

The amended bill does limit the number of guest workers who can
enter each year to 200,000 per year. Within 20 years, millions of
guest workers would have entered the United States, and none would
be required to leave.

Today, the permanent entry of non-immediate relatives, such as
brothers, sisters and adult children, is capped at 480,000 per year
minus the number of immediate relatives-parents, spouses and minor
children of U.S. citizens-admitted the previous year.
Hagel-Martinez eliminates the deduction for immediate relatives
from the cap, which effectively increases the number of
non-immediate relatives who could attain LPR status by 254,000 per
year or about 5 million over 20 years.

The United States now issues about 140,000 employment-based visas
per year. Under Hagel-Martinez, it would issue 450,000 per year
till 2016, then 290,000 per year after that. Moreover, spouses and
children of workers with employment-based visas do not count
against the cap. Given that 1.2 dependent relatives enter the
United States for each worker under employment-based immigration
programs, this means that nearly 1 million people per year would
receive LPR status until 2016 and 638,000 per year after
that.

How is the figure of 66 million reached?

Today, 950,000 people per year receive permanent residence visas
under current law. Over 20 years, that adds up to 19 million. The
provision granting amnesty to illegal immigrants living in the
United States would add another 10 million.

Today, when secondary family members, such as brothers and sisters,
enter, they are counted against the 480,000 people per year allowed
in because they are relatives of those already here under
employment or guest-worker programs. Ceasing to count them against
the 480,000, as Hagel-Martinez would do, adds 254,000 per year.
That's 5 million over 20 years.

Growing the employment-based green card program from 140,000
workers per year to 450,000-plus the estimated 540,000 relatives
they are allowed to bring with them-would account for another 13.5
million people over 20 years.

The new guest-worker program would allow in 200,000 people each
year. That would yield another 4 million people over 20 years.
Spouses and dependent children of illegal immigrants already here
who would receive amnesty under Hagel-Martinez and parents of
naturalized citizens joining their families in the United States
make up the rest.

Unforseen Consequences

A recent
piece on HumanEventsOnline.com by Alan Reynolds of the Cato
Institute stated that I performed a cheap trick by predicting that
immigration under S. 2611 would reach 200 million over 20 years. As
Mr. Reynolds should be well aware, I never predicted 200 million
immigrants under S. 2611 and provided that number only to
illustrate that my own estimates fell far below the law's maximum
legal flow. I did estimate that the inflow under S. 2611's original
uncapped "guest-worker" program could reach two million per year by
2027. I regard that estimate as perfectly reasonable given the
original provisions in the legislation. Immigration law for the
last 40 years has been a parable of unforeseen
consequences-creating new, essentially unlimited, categories of
immigration is an invitation for remarkable surprises that are
unlikely to be undone once underway. For example, the immigration
act of 1965 was not advertised as a decisive increase in
immigration at the time of its passage, but it resulted in a near
tripling of immigration within 30 years.

The Hagel-Martinez bill would yield similar outcomes. Today, about
one million immigrants enter the United States each year legally.
Under Hagel-Martinez, that number would more than double. Likewise,
today, 12% of our population is foreign-born. If Hagel-Martinez
passes, nearly a quarter (22%) of the population would be
foreign-born within 20 years. That level of immigration is
unprecedented in American history, far above the previous peak of
15% foreign born in the early 1900s. (Moreover, this analysis of
Hagel-Martinez concerns only future legal immigration. It is likely
the heavy illegal migration would continue under the bill as
well.)

The Hagel-Martinez bill would transform the United States socially,
economically and politically in ways we can't now imagine. What we
can know is that, if this passes, within two decades, the character
of the nation would be fundamentally different from what exists
today.

Robert Rector is
a senior research fellow domestic policy studies at the Heritage
Foundation.